Affirmative! My buddy & former swim team mate, Mark Hunt (with a nice assist from his wife Debbie) has invited me to the ALS Awareness Ice Bucket Challenge. 1st off: Marky Mark, thanks for the honor, and the privilege of passing along the message. (not so much, though, the cold bath!) Ive taken this seriously and have been prompted to learn more about ALS. The share/post from Jaimi Julian Thompson of Lorri Knox Carey s very moving video is quite the eye opener. ALS now has a real name, face and set of life stories attached for me. I encourage everyone to view her video. Im reminded how lucky I am, including having you all as friends. This wasnt straightforward nor simple, at first: selecting my nominees... I wanted to SHARE with all of you (but of course!) In the spirit of getting the word out, and to as broad and diverse a group as possible, while staying within the guidelines of the Challenge, I hereby select: (1) Chris Cavanaugh – another former swim teammate. Olympic Gold medalist, world record holder and once fastest man in the world in the pool. I know a ton of folks, especially kids, look up to the Big C. I do too. Hes not only a swimming legend and hero but an ambassador of our sport. (2) Yvette Wang Chiang – my earliest childhood friend and the one whom lives the farthest away. And on the subject of kids: shes the chairwoman of and oversees one of the most prestigious schools in her country. She shares with her faculty and staff in the responsibility of educating thousands of kids a year (grades K thru middle school), graduating nearly a thousand a year. (Maybe one of them one day will play a role in discovering a cure...) (3) Gongor Bandi (a/k/a our Khan) – on the subject of school, students and, yeah even ambassadors of some sort or sport: another buddy and my very own classmate, a fellow student (yes, ive gone back to school) and a member of a network Im also most honored to presently be a part of. Gongor will be our first real TIEMBA 16 Ambassador as he soon plays host to our class, which hes invited to his country, Mongolia. I share all this in the hope that this Challenge, its message, and the spirit in which it is being transmitted across the planet reaches as many as possible – including our dear Chinese brothers & sisters in the PRC (for whom ice and cold water is a most foreign combo). Gongor & I and our other EMBA classmates just learned from our Organizational Behavior guru, Charles Galunic, about the potential reach and power of blue networks – Hey, lets see what we can help do, together?!!! In concluding (this treatise of a post), I hope and trust we all – friends, family and neighbors from around the world, all students young and old (err, older) (or, wait, is that colder) – in some way, learn some important lessons about all of this. It may seem like play, but to many (like Ms. Carey) its most serious stuff indeed. I extend my regards and wishes to Ms. Carey for her and her familys courage – life cant be easy living with the diagnosis of ALS – and I also do this in her honor. Aloha~
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 22:24:59 +0000
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